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Cardinal Points

~ Poetry By Sandra Sidman Larson

Cardinal Points

Category Archives: Coming of Age

My Older Sister Can Harness Snow

26 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by Sandra Sidman Larson in Coming of Age, Seasons, Weekend Weather Chapbook

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for Shirley Ann Sidman Hogan
Shirley descends the stairs into the living room
riding in a sleigh of snowflakes and bows
from head to toe.
Her gown sparkles with the light of her smile.
Her date in his stiff tuxedo stands below,
hanging onto the newel post so as not to be
carried away in her drifts.
The front door thrown open they haul the sleigh
into the gathering winds of the night
and glide off together.

From behind the chair in the corner of the living room,
I emerge to climb the stairs—the steps
bare of any glitter now—
and walk through my bedroom to the window,
open it, and pull myself out onto the bare
limb of my tree where I linger

and then lunge toward a star
that will love me.

A Real Red Scare

26 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by Sandra Sidman Larson in Coming of Age, Politics, Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens chapbook

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During my junior year in high school my friends hung around
after school, went to Bonds for a malt, to the gym
for basketball practice, or to the movies while I went home
to watch TV, more specifically the Army-McCarthy hearings.

I thought it so outrageous for Senator Joseph McCarthy
to call all liberals and union workers—even worse—innocent,
apolitical people—Communists—not just Communists,
but Soviet agents or blame them as the guys who lost China
to Mao and his red guards. Were you or did you ever know one?

It was obsessive and I knew it (36 days, 32 witnesses,
71 half-day sessions, 187 hours of TV air time, two million
words of testimony). My friends were incredulous. I guess, not like me,
they’d never been to Salem, Mass. or studied the details

of American history—or maybe they believed these folks were witches,
so why should they worry? And who cares
about the First Amendment anyway? Let them stew
in the Fifth. But I thought it outrageous

for I regarded Joseph N. Welch, chief attorney for the Army,
as a prophet even before he uttered that final, cutting rebuke
to the senator: Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?
Have you no sense of decency? His words, I believed,

paraphrased Jehovah’s own, while McCarthy, with his faithful aide
Roy Cohn and their red-hunting plan, were from Satan’s ring—the truly crimson
crowd. I have in my hand a list of 205 cases of individuals who appear
to be either card-carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist party.
(81 were supposedly from the State Department.)

I couldn’t believe the folks they’d done in (about 10,000,
the best estimate of who lost their jobs) including, I later found out,
when my sister married him, my brother-in-law, a conservative
Republican who was learning how to speak Russian, hoping
for a career in the foreign service.

By attending the trials via TV, it was, at least, one way to rehearse
all my denials regarding whatever I was guilty of,
even though, like my brother-in-law on the other end
of the political spectrum, I wasn’t un-American.
I was happy, though to see McCarthy finally go up in smoke;
condemned 67-22 on December 2, 1954 for
conduct contrary to Senatorial traditions.

In the Sixties I felt some comfort with the flare-up
of liberalism, but then, given our need to prevent the domino effect
in Vietnam (that red scare again) it began to fade until, with the rise
of Ronald Reagan, liberalism was back to being heretical

again. But now the twist was different, one must be a fervent supporter
of the totally unrestrained market economy. Such fanaticism
did in my political aspirations and my brother-in-law never could join
the Foreign Service. So I suppose there were rings of fire
for everyone, whatever your political persuasion.

Published in Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens
2003, Pudding House Press chapbook series

Sophomoric Acts

19 Saturday Nov 2011

Posted by Sandra Sidman Larson in Coming of Age, Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens chapbook

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Grace Smith House, Connecticut College
New London, Connecticut

In memory of my roommate, Nancy Quin Davis

The year Nancy and I were sophomores
we hauled a sofa up three flights of stairs
to our room filled with Salvation Army
throw-aways. We were satisfied,
until in its broken springs
our cat was continually trapped.
She cried out with the sound
of lost hope, lost virginity,
or something else unseen.
We didn’t know what
was going on when
we heard the commotion,
and burst uninvited into Olga’s room.
She had thrown her potted plants
against the wall, each
and every pot broken,
ruined on the floor. Immobile
on her couch, she watched
as we carried out the shards
of whatever it was
that was bothering her.
She refused to explain.
We returned to our room
and tried, but, mystified,
we never could figure out ourselves
why everything that year
was falling out of grace.

Published in Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens, Sandra Larson, Pudding House Chapbook Series, 2003

My Life as Minnie Mouse

19 Saturday Nov 2011

Posted by Sandra Sidman Larson in Coming of Age, Politics, Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens chapbook

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Tags

feminism

I began with small ears flat
against my head.
They grew bigger each year
astounded by what they heard.

As a child I had a voice that wasn’t
appreciated. I wanted to know where
babies came from, why Grandma
never laughed at Grandpa’s jokes.

In the middle of the story I was bound up,
told I was a woman, to put heels on my feet,
gloves on my hands.

My heart longed for a guy named Mickey.
He might have been my soul mate, if he hadn’t been
so damned cute. Yet I’m not complaining,

I gained a happy attitude once
I stepped out
of polka dot dresses
and became
a little less plastic.

Published Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens, Sandra Larson, Pudding House Chapbook Series, 2003

The Owl and the Pussy Cat

17 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by Sandra Sidman Larson in Coming of Age, Love and Lust, Marriage, Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens chapbook

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Tags

lakes

Moonlit night, the Chicago Yacht Club, me
in a borrowed taffeta gown, you
in Bermuda shorts and dinner jacket.
On the heels of the moment
we planned the voyage to escape the dance.
(Our excitement and sense of romance a bit
choppy.) A dingy bobbing at the dock.

We stole it, rowed out toward a dark horizon,
while the maitre d’ rushed out, flailed
his arms like semaphores
against the wind, trying to coax us
back. We might have surmised
that navigation would be
troublesome with only one oar
and a broom, yet we produced three sons,
drifted and turned until, finally,
the boat broke asunder
and we swam to our separate shores.

Once there, we turned to our sons, waved
our arms like the maitre d’ and shouted,
Stay ashore, stay ashore
this boat doesn’t belong to you,

but like us, they didn’t believe it.

Published in Whistling Girls and Cackling Hens, Sandra Larson, Pudding House Chapbook Series, 2003

Asbury Park

17 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by Sandra Sidman Larson in Coming of Age, Love and Lust, Over a Threshold of Roots, Seasons

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For J.C.

Surf pounding on the beach—
edgy talk—
two teenagers
on its outskirts.
Sand slows their pace.
Finally the boardwalk.

A false glare of lights,
cranked up phonograph music
drowns out the pounding sound
of surf. Salt breezes
hang near as he steps up
to a booth, takes aim
at her purple desires,
wins her an over-stuffed bear.

The night deepens, the teenagers
move on through a double clutch
of evening into the rhinestone stars.
Convertible top down, they sit
in swirling distances. The only guard,
a small light in the hallway of her house.
They touch tongues over cotton-candied teeth.
Each breath they take sounds like
the miniature oceans they are.

Published in Over A Threshold of Roots, Sandra Larson, Pudding House Chapbook Series, 2007

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